Ciarán Fox – co-editor of Catalyst

What (or who) are you most looking forward to at WORD Christchurch?

It’s going to be hard to choose between so many fantastic events – I think I need to clone myself. This is definitely shaping up as the best Writers Festival ever. I think I’m most excited about all the poetry in this years festival particularly slam poet Anis Mojgani. But if pushed I have to say the two must-see poetry events will be the Catalyst Road Show on Saturday 30 August 9pm at the Darkroom – some of the best local performance poets paired with live music. And of course there is the absolutely unique live poetry event Survivor Poetry that closes the festival – a one of a kind mash up of performance, writing and reality TV invented right here in Christchurch. I guarantee you have never seen poetry done like this before

What do you think about libraries?

I’m pretty passionate about libraries and I love how everyone that works at Christchurch City Libraries seems to feel that way too. Libraries are such an important part of our communities and personally I don’t know what I’d do without them. I think of how much I appreciated the libraries that were able to open soon after the earthquakes and what a lifeline of sanity they were. Oh and I love reading as much as life itself. My favourite things to do in the library are hunting through the music sections and looking for obscure graphic novels.

Share a surprising fact about yourself.

I’m sorry I have no idea what to say for this one, sorry! Oh maybe that I’ve never won a competition in my entire life. Not a thing, apart from sport or quizzes. Or maybe that I can say the alphabet backwards as fast as I can forwards. Or that both my parents were dancers. Or that I’m actually very good at table tennis. Or that when I was a kid I wanted to be a Formula 1 driver or a nature documentary film maker.